FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, August 9, 2024

MEDIA CONTACT:
Joan Ilacqua, Executive Director
joan.ilacqua@historyproject.org

BOSTON - The HistoryMaker Awards, a celebration in recognition of LGBTQ+ community members who make history every day, will take place on September 19, 2024, at the St. Botolph Club, Boston, MA. This annual celebration honors the lifetime commitments and ongoing contributions of Boston’s LGBTQ+ community activists.

2024 HistoryMaker: The Combahee River Collective

The 2024 HistoryMaker Awards will recognize the outstanding impact of The Combahee River Collective on their 50th anniversary. Active in Boston from December 1975 through June 1981, the CRC was one of the first groups to document the connection between racial injustice and other social inequities. Formed as a radical alternative to the National Black Feminist Organization and named after Harriet Tubman’s 1853 raid on the Combahee River that freed over 750 enslaved people, the CRC addressed the realities of Black women who felt excluded from other feminist movements. Although many founding members identified as Black lesbians, all were unified in a Black radical feminist movement inclusive of any Black feminist woman from the global Black diaspora. In 1977, the CRC released the Combahee River Collective Statement, authored by Demita Frazier, Barbara Smith, and Beverly Smith. This foundational document is essential — and still highly relevant — to contemporary Black feminism; pioneering the concept of interlocking oppressions of race, gender, class, and sexuality that intersect to create something more devastating than the sum of its parts.

2024 Lavender Rhino: Print Ain't Dead

The History Project is pleased to announce Print Ain’t Dead as the 2024 Lavender Rhino Awardee! Named after one of the early symbols of the Gay Liberation movement, the Lavender Rhino Award is presented to an activist or organization whose current efforts are making history for the LGBTQ+ community. The History Project is proud to recognize Print Ain’t Dead for their practice producing exhibitions, publications and public spaces that highlight Black, Brown and Indigenous artists and organizers, with an emphasis on queer and trans perspectives. Print Ain't Dead is a bookstore, reading room and micropress.

The History Project will celebrate the 2023 honorees with an early evening reception at the St. Botolph Club, featuring cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, on September 7, 2023.

The 2024 HistoryMaker Awards will take place in person at the St. Botolph Club, 199 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02116. Tickets, Host Committee, and Sponsorship opportunities are available at historyproject.org.

About the HistoryMaker Award
The History Project has presented the HistoryMaker Award since 2009 to those whose lifetime achievements have had a significant and positive effect on Boston and Massachusetts' LGBTQ+ communities. Past recipients of the award include Congressman Barney Frank, State Representative Byron Rushing, GLAD’s Civil Rights Project Director Mary Bonauto, BAGLY executive director Grace Sterling Stowell, Abe Rybeck from the Theater Offensive, journalist Susan Ryan-Vollmar, Larry Kessler of AIDS Action Committee, activist and community organizer Orlando Del Valle, Mayor Denise Simmons, Dr. Thea James, Dr. Ken Mayer, trans activist Nancy Nangeroni, GLAD founder John Ward, lobbyist Arline Isaacson, and Dr. Gary Bailey.

About the Lavender Rhino Award
Named after one of the early symbols of the Gay Liberation Movement, the Lavender Rhino Award is presented to emerging activists or organizations whose impact on the local LGBTQ community deserves recognition. Previous Lavender Rhino honorees have included Carmel Tre’Andre Valentine, the LGBT Elders of Color, activist and organizer Corey Yarbrough, musician and composer Omar Thomas, attorney Allison Wright, trans activist Chastity Bowick, prison abolition advocate Michael Cox, K.J. Rawson, founder of the Digital Transgender Archive, and the Boston Chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

About The History Project
The History Project is Boston’s LGBTQ+ community archives. A volunteer-driven organization founded in 1980, The History Project documents, preserves, and shares the history of New England’s LGBTQ communities and with LGBTQ+ individuals, organizations, allies, and the public. Learn more about our work at www.historyproject.org.